DRIVING EXPERIENCE, PERSONALITY, AND SKILL AND SAFETY-MOTIVE DIMENSIONS IN DRIVERS SELF-ASSESSMENTS

This study was aimed at measuring skill and safety-motive dimensions i n drivers' self-assessments of their driving abilities and at investig ating correlations among three driving inventories and six general per sonality measures. The questionnaires were completed by 113 students w ith a driver's licence. The orthogonal model with the skill and safety -motive factors explained 35% of the variance in the questionnaire bas ed on the work of Spolander (Driver's Assessment of Their Own Driving Ability, 1983) and Hatakka, Keskinen, Katila and Laapotti (Internation al Conference on Traffic Safety, 1991). Multiple regression analysis s howed driving experience to be a significant predictor of safety acid skill-oriented driving, so that with driving experience drivers assess themselves as more fluent in handling the car, but lower in safety as pects of driving. The safety-motive scale had only weak correlations w ith driving-specific or personality measures except the Lie-scale of t he EPQ, which suggests that 'safe driving' expressed in questionnaires is safety jargon soon forgotten after driving school with driving exp erience, possibly together with the corresponding safety behavior, rat her than a permanent response tendency. The skill scale correlated str ongly with scales expressing an emotional attitude to driving and with a sense of coherence. Driving aggression and dislike of driving DBI s cales correlated with neuroticism, Type-A behavior, self-esteem, sense of coherence, and locus of control, whereas the MDIE scales correlate d only with Type-A behavior and neuroticism.